


Scents

by IneffableDoll



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Drunkenness, Funny, Other, Scents & Smells, Silly, The Author Regrets Everything, This Is STUPID, extraordinary amounts of alcohol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:55:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23720038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IneffableDoll/pseuds/IneffableDoll
Summary: “Not you, I know what YOU smell like.”
Relationships: (if you squint) - Relationship, Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 101





	Scents

**Author's Note:**

> This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever written. We’re in quarantine and I just wanted to write something completely inane. Here you are. There is no plot, there is no meaning, there is just. Drunken idiots.

It came up, as most things did, when they were drunk.

“Say, Crowley dear,” Aziraphale murmured into his drink, lolling his head to look at his companion, who was currently sprawled across the other half of the sofa like his life’s goal was to be as serpentine as possible while in a human corporation. “Whate’er did’you mean by tha’?”

“Hmm?” Crowley blinked wearily and looked up, thoroughly disgruntled. He’d been busy studying the pattern of Aziraphale’s rug, thank you very much, and it took much focus. Now he would have to start over.

“What do I…” Aziraphale paused as though forgetting what he was saying – which he was. “What’d you smell? To me? Wha’do I smell like?”

Crowley took a moment to process the words, trying to remember what language they’d been speaking in, and got caught recalling which of the senses “smell” was. “Uhh,” he said. “What’re you talkin’ ‘bout?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “You said,” he tried to explain wobblily, “you said that I smell – that you know what I smell like. Before. Earlier. When all the…” he made an explosive motion with his hands. “World. Not doin’ that.”

“Mmm,” Crowley grunted in reply, nodding fervently. “Snake nose, tongue, y’ know? Smells all the things, and y’smell like a…a cloud.”

“Clouds don’t…they’re water. I’m water?” He paused. “I’d like water.”

Crowley absentmindedly snapped and the drink in Aziraphale’s glass turned to water – a Jesus antithesis to the letter. “Not a li’eral cloud. But like. A met- meter- meterpho…pretend one. Like the cloud candy.”

“Cotton candy?”

“Tha’s it!”

“I smell like cotton candy?”

Crowley shook his head. “No, but ‘s like that. The pretend cloud. You’re like a…after rain? Or a wa’erfall. Or a…a soft bed with clean sheets. Kin’a ‘thereal but not like angels…other angels. Y’know?”

Aziraphale blinked, hardly registering Crowley’s comparisons. “I don’t.”

Crowley sat forward, finding it suddenly very important to articulate. “Okay, ‘s like…the bookshop. Here. What’s it smell like t’you?”

“Hmm,” Aziraphale considered, looking around and tapping his lip in that thoughtful way only a drunk person can pull off without looking like a prick. “Well, parch…parm…paper. And it’s just like. Coziness and the spices of the teas. Like home,” he effectively surmised.

“Ah!” Crowley shouted suddenly, slamming his glass down with a passion, not noticing the small wave of wine that drenched his sleeve. “Tha’s the thing! The word!”

“Wha’?”

“Home!” Crowley leaned back with a smug grin that was only mostly lopsided. “You smell like home, angel. There y’go.”

Aziraphale nodded sagely. After a moment, he blinked rapidly. “What word?”

“Hmm?”

“What was it?”

Crowley raised his eyebrows, then scrunched them low, lips pursed as he tried to remember whatever Aziraphale was asking. Coming up blank in every regard, he shrugged.

“I’mma sober,” Aziraphale murmured. “Sober up!” he further clarified, sitting forward to put down his glass. Crowley moved to do the same before seeing that he’d already put his down moments before.

They simultaneously grunted as the uncomfortable feeling of liquor vacating their systems rendered them vaguely cold and covered in goosebumps. Aziraphale seemed grateful for the water Crowley had miracled earlier as he rid his mouth of the remaining sour taste in a few gulps. Crowley took up his glass again, repeated the earlier miracle, and did the same.

“So,” Aziraphale said, voice firm now that he was rid of drink and only a little pretentious – which told Crowley immediately that he wasn’t going to like whatever the angel was about to say next – “I smell like ‘home’ to you, do I?”

Crowley, the mature six-thousand-year-old demon he was, stuck his slim snake tongue out of him for a moment, fixing the angel with a glare. Unfortunately, as snakes smell with their tongues, all this did was wash Crowley in the same euphoric feeling that overcomes over one when they return from a long vacation and sink into familiar cushions.

“The drink talking, angel,” Crowley replied testily. “Probably the most accurate thing I said was the waterfall. Like…refreshing?”

Aziraphale wracked his memory and found the bit that his alcohol-muddled brain hadn’t actually registered at the time. “Ah, yes. What do other angels smell like to you, then?”

Crowley made a face. “Sour, like cleaner or bleach or some such. Chemical-y. Gabriel’s like mosquito spray, which, as we discussed, I will never go near again on _both_ accounts.”

Apparently, this line of conversation was of particular interest to Aziraphale, who continued, “And other demons?”

Crowley grinned wickedly. “Rot, mostly. Mold and dust mites with a light sprinkling of ash. Some have a bit more brimstone and sulfur to their joints if they’re feeling dramatic. Hastur is a walking _swamp_.”

Aziraphale couldn’t help the amused grimace that crossed his lips. “And you?” he said after a considerable pause.

Crowley crooked an eyebrow. “What about me?”

“How would you describe your own scent? Because it’s certainly not rot or any such tosh.”

“Can’t really tell, myself. ’S like, when you live in a smell long enough, you don’t smell it anymore. What would you say it’s like?”

“Right,” Aziraphale agreed. “Well, it’s reminiscent of…hm…how would I put it…”

“Mildew?” Crowley suggested, dragging his memory over all the various scents of the denizens of Hell. “Fungus? Uh…sweaty sneaker?”

“Not at all! More like…a fireplace.”

“A fireplace? As in, ash, or charcoal?”

“No, it’s…” Aziraphale frowned, trying to find the words. “It’s harder, lacking a serpent’s discerning tongue, but the closest I could guess would be like a crisp woodsmoke. A sweet but hearty aroma. Earthy, even, in a fresh sort of way, like newly overturned dirt in a garden.”

Crowley considered this. “Earthy. I’d imagine that’d be from, you know, being on Earth. Still,” he studied Aziraphale for a moment. “Only _you_ would make smelling like fire seem like a good thing. I must be stinking up the place every time I come by!”

Aziraphale shrugged. “It is a pleasant smell, though. I don’t mind it lingering a bit. In fact, the bookshop doesn’t smell quite right without it.”

Crowley let out a dramatic breath, running a hand through his hair as he raised an eyebrow at the seemingly innocuous comment. “Right. Good, then.”

“Oh, speaking of the bookshop,” Aziraphale said suddenly, “yesterday, a customer came in here, looking for a copy of…”

The conversation trailed on from there in the usual manner, and though Crowley didn’t dwell on the conversation too much, Aziraphale thought about scents all evening.

**Author's Note:**

> In summary, angels smell clean or fresh, and demons smell dirty or burning-ish, and our favorite man-shaped beings are the best of both worlds.  
> I…cannot believe I just wrote a fic just to explain what these characters smell like. What has my life become…


End file.
